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The German student movement (also called
68er-Bewegung, movement of 1968,
or soixante-huitaires) was a protest movement that took place during the
late 1960s in Germany. It
was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and
hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments,
and the poor living conditions of students. A wave of protests—some violent—swept
Germany, fueled by over-reaction by the police and encouraged by
contemporary protest movements across the world. Following more
than a century of conservatism among German students, the
German student movement also marked a significant major shift to
the left and radicalisation of student politics.

Historical
background

Following the failure in the mid 19th century of the civil revolution in Germany (1848/49),
German students largely abandoned radical politics and heavy
political involvements. Having failed to turn Germany into a
republic in a rebellion involving much of the working class, German
students reversed course and began to follow instead the Prussian ideal of a "good citizen".
During this period, the students effectively ceased all political
activity against existing political institutions and began to
become more conservative.

By the time that the First World War
broke out in 1914, students were so steadfastly conservative and
nationalistic that many of them went to war voluntarily. When the
war ended in humiliation for Germany in 1919, students, like many
in Germany, placed the blame for Germany's defeat and subsequent
economic collapses on the newly-formed Weimar Republic, its founders and the
Treaty
of Versailles. Resulting from this, and because German students
were so used to being governed by a single figurehead, it was not
hard for the German National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP) headed by Adolf Hitler to convince most students to
join its student organization (the NSDStB — National
Socialist German Students' League) and to abandon democracy.
When Hitler gained full control of Germany in 1933, the universities were
generally pliant towards Nazi
policies. This explains in large part why so many students and
professors worked together with the Nazi regime.

Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, students
returning from the European battlefields and their professors
wanted to resume normal academic activity as quickly as possible.
The Allied forces agreed that
everyday life should be restored quickly, and so removed only a few
professors from the posts they had already held during the Nazi
regime. German students were hence allowed to return to work very
quickly, but the university system was not fully denazified. As a
result, students kept their nationalist and conservative traditions
in student fraternities while leftist student organizations like
the SDS (German
Socialist Student Union) remained insignificant, and this
situation continued until the 1960s.

Consequently, by the advent of the 1960s the university system
was still deeply conservative in its political leanings, with these
attitudes being reflected in the lack of a say for students in the
governance of their universities. Similarly, in central government,
many politicians and administrators from the Nazi era had survived,
leading to a tendency towards authoritarian government and
successive conservative administrations.

Early stages of the
movement

In 1966, for the first time in fifteen years, the German economy
went into recession and the FDP finally withdrew from Ludwig Erhard's
CDU/CSU/FDP coalition government. With the forming of the
CDU/CSU/SPD coalition government under Kurt
Georg Kiesinger the voice of the opposition within the Bundestag was seriously
weakened. This led some students to conclude that this encouraged
authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes in government and
therefore justified and indeed necessitated the transfer of
opposition from parliament to bodies outside it. At the same time,
the shock of realising that the Wirtschaftswunder could not last
forever led many in the student body, influenced by Marxist economic theory, to
believe that the economic wealth of the nation, instead of
improving the standard of living of the working
class, would destroy it and lead to an ever-growing gap between the
rich and the poor.

Through their critical work on many different topics and the
reactions of the public and the government itself, these main goals
formed in the minds of the students:

The first goal was the source of all the others and thus the
most important in their minds.

To summarise, the students rejected traditional, parliamentary
decision making-processes, social injustice and the inequalities of
wealth. They felt the need to overcome and change these things.

The past

To the students, the German chapter of Fascism was not yet
closed. Many former Nazis were still working for the government or
at the universities (in fact, then-Chancellor Kurt
Georg Kiesinger had formerly been a member of the NSDAP) and
the newly-formed right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD)
was attracting more and more voters. In addition to that the
students had to deal with the fact that they were identified as
Germans and blamed for the crimes committed by their parents’
generation.

The students did not want to be held responsible for their
parents’ deeds. But their parents acted as if it were no concern of
theirs; when the students tried to show the public that the
anti-fascist idea of the constitution
was not yet established in German society, the government and the
press felt extremely offended, feeling they had formed a democratic
society and did not want it to be attacked.

Reforming the
universities

To support its new economic policies the government wanted to
change the universities, producing graduates faster by introducing
a time limit on courses and limiting the number of students. The
students, however, did not want to adjust to the needs of the
economy and the government. In fact, they wanted to adjust the
universities to their own wishes. They wanted more rights in the
running of universities, better-equipped workplaces and the
expulsion of the professors who had been active during the Nazi
period. The university boards did not react to the students'
protest and introduced the time limit for studying.

When this time limit was introduced at the Free University of Berlin
during the summer holidays of 1966 the students were not there, and
so were unable to protest against it; instead, the first big sit-in of the German student
movement happened when they returned after the holidays, with about
4,000 participants. The events at the Free University of Berlin can
be seen as representative of the events at all universities in
Germany because the same events were repeated elsewhere a short
time later.

The war in
Vietnam and political suppression

Through their increasing interest in politics the students
quickly engaged in discussions concerning the war in Vietnam. They
formed the opinion that the United States had no right to fight in Vietnam, not only because of
the victims but mainly because of what they saw as an imperialistic foreign
policy.

The government, however, had to back the USA since they were
still watching over Germany after World War Two. For this reason,
university boards put a ban on political activities by students
(e.g. discussions) at the universities. They explained this act by
saying that science should always be neutral. This was the same
explanation the professors had used to justify their behaviour
during the Third Reich. The students wanted to be able
to act politically, not only because of the war in Vietnam, but to
protest against the horrible conditions in the Third World as students
and not only as individuals.

Emergency
Acts

The students were strongly opposed to the German
Emergency Acts which were due to be passed, which would allow
the government to limit civil rights in the case of an emergency.
Among other things, they would allow the government to restrict freedom of
movement and to limit privacy and confidentiality of
telecommunications correspondence.

Action and
reaction

By the year 1966 the number of students which were interested in
the conflict between the students and the authorities had
increased. Many of those who had not been interested before became
at least passively interested by now. This newly-formed public took
part in the demonstrations, sit-ins and other protest actions
arranged by the students and their organizations (e.g. the Sozialistischer
Deutscher Studentenbund).

The government tried to fight the situation by decreasing the
funds for universities and student organizations and by turning
public opinion against the students with the help of the press. The
view that students should study and not demonstrate grew stronger.
The students were also repressed in the streets by the police. Yet,
the more pressure the government put on the students, the more the
students would stick together.

On June 2, 1967 the conflict would finally escalate. Students
had organized demonstrations against the official visit by the Shah of Iran. In their opinion, the German
government was demonstrating a positive attitude towards a dictatorial
government that was suppressing and torturing its own people.

During the first demonstration in front of the Opera
House, which the Shah was visiting, the police of Berlin and the Iranian service attacked the protestors. In the
turmoil, the unarmed student Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the head from
behind by Polizeiobermeister (Police Sergeant) Karl-Heinz
Kurras and killed.

The following days saw many demonstrations throughout the whole
republic against police brutality. The students in
Berlin, however, were anxious and in a desperate situation. The
police were preventing them from gathering in public, the
universities had submitted their authority to the government and
the press wrote that the students were the brutal and aggressive
component of the demonstrations and that they had provoked the
death of Benno Ohnesorg. Even though there were some students
groups supporting the idea of a violent revolution the protesting
students were mostly peaceful.

For the following days the students took over control of the
Free University of Berlin. Finally being able to meet again, they
used the time to discuss and reflect on the events of the past
days.

The revolt
continues

The spirit of the students in Berlin spread across the whole
country. In autumn 1967 there were organized protest groups at
nearly all universities in Germany. In the following months some of
the largest and most brutal demonstrations in the history of the
German republic happened. The press, especially the tabloidBild-Zeitung newspaper was telling the
public what to think about those protestors. Its publisher, Axel
Springer, did not publish any positive articles about the students.
Springer supported the government and was spreading the
government's views among its readers.

At Easter 1968, there was
an attempted assassination of one of the most important members of
the SDS, Rudi
Dutschke. The students were outraged because the “Springer”
press and the government had named Rudi Dutschke their “public
enemy”. Overnight students all over Germany organized actions to
block the delivery of the Bild-Zeitung by building
blockades and protesting in front of “Springer” buildings. During
these actions about 400 students were injured and two died. Rudi
Dutschke died in 1979 of the late after-effects of his injury.

The
climax and the decline

The revolt against the government reached its climax in May
1968. Students, schoolchildren and members of workers' unions
formed a group of 80,000 people who demonstrated in the capital Bonn against the emergency
legislature. Even though the students mobilized as many people as
possible to support their actions they could not stop the Bundestag from passing the
new law.

This failure marks the beginning of the end for the student
movement. The former union of many small student groups
representing different theories on the same topics was falling
apart because they were blaming other groups' theories and thinking
for the failure of the whole movement. This meant that the students
were not working together anymore but against each other. By the
end of the year even the SDS, the strongest of all student
organizations, was falling into pieces.

The
effect

Although the students failed to overthrow the status quo, the
effects of the student movement are still visible today because the
movement did change things in Germany.

Another side-effect of the student movement was the so-called emancipation of women in Germany. Through
their political work the women came to be indoctrinated into the
belief that they were being suppressed by male society and that
they thus had to change this condition. In addition to that the
student movement brought up many theories on education and the
raising of children which have influenced the modern forms of these
processes. These changes and the huge influence on culture and art
were probably the most important effects of the student
movement.

An indirect effect was the "radical decree" which was passed in the
year 1972. It allowed the government to prevent the employment of
people in the public services if there were grounds to believe that
they did not support the free and democratic principles
(freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung) outlined in the
constitution (Grundgesetz). Under the decree, which gradually fell
into desuetude after 1976, around 3.5 million individuals were
investigated and 10,000 refused employment (fewer than 0.3%); 130
were dismissed.[1]

The student movement, although it failed to achieve its main
goals, brought many new and important elements to German society
and culture which influence the country even today. A number of
ministers in the Gerhard Schröder government were
student activists back in the 1960s and early 1970s.